Lets start on Thursday night. I took the subway over to the train station to buy my ticket. On my first try I thought I was getting somewhere until I asked for a return ticket. Apparently you can't buy round trip tickets from that window. I called Cookie up and asked if she could give me some pointers. I then went back to the same window and asked where the round trip ticket window was. The lady told me some number and held up her fingers. I fucking hate it when people hold up their fingers when rattling off numbers. It always distracts me from listening to what they are saying. So I walked towards the window I thought I was supposed to go to and low and behold, the numbers stopped like two short of what I thought I heard the woman say. Blah. So I went to a nearby window and tried again. No luck. I called Cookie again and got a couple more pointers. I was pretty flustered by this point. Finally, I went back to window #2 again and got referred to yet another window inside the station. This was the right window finally. I told the lady what I wanted and... they didn't have it. They did however have tickets on a more expensive luxury express train. (Fuck you ZhongGuoTieLu!) I bit the bullet and shelled out for the posh accommodations. I've been in this country too long... Paying like $100 for a really comfortable round trip rail ticket between Beijing and Shanghai (1400 km) is not bad by Western standards. But then, I could have covered all my expenses for the weekend - comfortably - with the amount I paid extra. Whatever. I had my tickets. I sent Cookie an SMS conveying my deepest thanks for her assistance and patience.
On Friday I woke up a few hours before I needed to be at work and got to packing. I loaded up my giant backpacking pack (6000 in^3) with the basics and my super warm down duvet (to fight off the nasty cold Southern Chinese nights, or rather, their glaring lack of central heating). When I was done I had a bag that looked a bit excessive for a three day journey but again, whatever. I told Jester "Zai jian. Zhu niubi xin nian!" (OK, I left out the niubi part...) and headed off to teach my last class of the year at school #1. After teaching there, I jumped on the subway again and headed way out west to school #2 for more teaching. I finished all my teaching for the year at 6:00pm. My train to Wuxi was at 7:35pm and I was at least 45 minutes away by subway. After paying me for my week (!) my totally kick-ass boss walked me to the closest subway station and wished me well. On the way to the subway she taught me how to ask where my train was boarding. I got to Beijing HuoCheZhan at about 6:50 or 7:00. I immediately asked a policeman how to get to my train and he told me where to go in English! I kept responding back to him in Chinese but to be honest I was glad he told me in English because I was in too much of a hurry to allow for misunderstanding. I made my way to the platform and boarded my train with maybe 10 minutes to spare. I went to my compartment, put my bag away and chilled out for a few. Once the train was moving I made my way to the dining car for dinner. Dinner wasn't bad for something prepared in a moving vehicle but I made the crucial mistake of drinking green tea with my meal. I went back to my compartment and settled in for the evening but didn't get much sleep to speak of.
Saturday morning at about 15 minutes till the ass-crack of dawn the train rolled into Wuxi. Maybe 40 minutes prior to this a very polite Chinese voice had filled in myself and the other friends (this being one of the few words I understood) that we should wake up and such. I still wasn't sleeping much anyways, so I jumped down from my bunk and headed back to the dining car for a quick breakfast. After breakfast I grabbed my stuff and hit the ground running in Wuxi. Hoo boy. I was a bit nervous knowing that I would have to find my way to Slozo's place with only an address. On top of that I would have to figure out WTF people were saying as the accent is a bit different compared to Beijing (assuming they're speaking Mandarin and not the local language which is similar to Shanghainese).
My first few attempts at getting a cab were not very clear to me. I kept telling drivers where I wanted to go and they kept telling me that I was within walking distance... Right. Slozo says the place is huge, yet I don't see the name (or any fragment thereof) on any of the buildings in my vicinity. I kept cool since time was definitely not an issue and walked up the street a bit further and asked some people again. They tried to tell me a bus I could take. I'm pretty sure they also pointed me to the other side of the street which was probably the best directions I'd been given all morning (a mistake, no doubt). On the other side of the road I found a cab who knew the place I was talking about. I was able to guide the driver all the way to the building I wanted.
So it was about 7:00am or so and I was finally at my destination. I went to the specified apartment and knocked on the door... and an elderly Chinese man opened the door. We both looked at each other with shocked expressions. I told him I made an error and repeated the building number to discover that I was off by one. We both laughed about it and I headed next door to the correct building. Once there I knocked on the door... Waited a bit, knocked again and was finally answered by a white guy. This had to be the place!
(We would plan to take over the world, but it's too fucking early for that shit)
Slozo looked really tired when he answered the door. Had I been thinking, I would have had him point me to a soft spot to crash so that everyone could nap until a reasonable hour. But I didn't do that and instead we shot the shit over coffee/tea for the morning. Yijie got out of bed a little while later to join us.
Once we'd all had time to wake up a bit more and I'd settled in a bit with my unpacking, Slozo and I decided to go to the local market without Yijie. The plan was for me to play Dumb Laowai #2 while we bought supplies for lunch and listen for things people were saying around us. It was actually kinda fun. Slozo went to a couple of his regular people for his staples first. After that I wanted to get some broccoli, so we went to a more unfamiliar vendor. As we were inquiring about the price (remembering to use English and lots of gesticulations) I listened to what people were saying around us, and I quote: "That's really expensive!", "He doesn't understand". That's what I understood. Other things were said that I didn't catch. I related this to Slozo and we waved goodbye to the vendor. We headed over to his regular produce lady and she hooked us up for a better price (probably still expensive, but not too bad). After that I had to break my no-speaka-Chinese rule so I could buy some fried tofu. We left the market and headed back to Slozo's apartment.
Back at Slozo's place we started making preparations for lunch. I cooked up something that didn't taste so good. Slozo cooked up a very nice chicken curry. After lunch we headed over to Ronnie's restaurant to meet up with Ronnie and play a bit of ping pong. Ronnie wasn't there when we got there, so Slozo and I chilled for a little bit and had a beer. After maybe half an hour or so, Ronnie showed up and got to ruling the ping pong table (to be fair, Slozo was holding his own but those two definitely play more than I do). We hung out there for a few hours, met a few of the other regulars (friends of Ronnie? One and the same?) and generally took it easy.
After leaving Ronnie's we headed back to Slozo's place to rest for a little while in advance of a long night of festivities. After a short rest we all headed out for some dinner. I was a bit shocked to find that Slozo had still not experienced hotpot despite having been in China for four months. Yijie knew about a decent place so we went there. We briefly considered ordering dog meat before settling on more standard ingredients. I promised Slozo that I would treat him to dog meat when he comes to visit me in Beijing. We ate until we were full and then headed back to Slozo's for a short stop to let our food settle and then made our way to Ronnie's pub (different from the restaurant). At the pub we got down to a little more serious drinking along with introductions to some of the locals for me, a little bit of pool, and general revelry. I managed to "win" the first game of pool I played on a technicality before getting my ass handed to me by Slozo in the following game.
At midnight, Ronnie started lathering some old guy's head with shaving cream and going at him with a razor. I have no idea why. A few minutes later the fireworks came out and everybody headed out to the street. This part was fucking fantastic. Ronnie and a friend set up about 8 "mortar bricks" and lit the fuses. What followed was a rather spectacular fireworks display 30 meters above the street. Cars continued to drive past as if nothing was happening. Hot ashes rained down on the spectators. You gotta love China. That, and now I really can't wait to see what Chinese New Year is like. Ronnie had described it as "war zone-like" in an anecdote from earlier in the day. I'm inclined to believe the man until I see differently.
Don't ask. I don't know either.
Mayhem on New Years!
After the display we headed back inside and continued to party for another two hours or so. At about 2:00am the day was really starting to wear on us, so we headed back to the Slozo's place and crashed out for the next day or so. Seriously. We slept until about 2:00pm the next afternoon. After that we farted around and accomplished fuck all. Well not really. At some point Yijie went to the train station and bought tickets for our journey to Shanghai the next day.
On Sunday we got up way too early and headed to the train station. We made it there with minutes to spare and ran down the platform to board our train. The train ride was pretty uneventful. I am bit jealous that Slozo lives so close to Shanghai. Perhaps right now you are thinking: "But Weihan, isn't Beijing like totally rad and cosmopolitan?". The answer is no. In Beijing they treat foreigners like zoo animals in most places (zoo animals who are without a question swimming in cash). In Shanghai there are too many foreigners and people are moving too fast to take notice. Shanghai is China's NYC.
The train station in Shanghai dumped us directly onto the subway there. We made our way to Slozo's friend's apartment without too much difficulty (well, OK. There was a bit of confusion about which building it was in). After cooling our heels for a little bit and gawking at what sweet digs had been loaned to Slozo gratis, we headed out for some lunch and sight seeing. None of us were really sure where to go, so I suggested "that place with all the old European-style architecture". Unfortunately, that description wasn't specific enough for the people in the subway (well, it was but we weren't sure) so I called Jester up and asked him what the name was. Jester answered back with the same guess that we had been given by the locals so we bought our tickets and set off.
Me, with Shanghai and a Chinese woman picking her nose in the background.
We spent a couple hours walking along "The Bund" (Shanghai Waitan), snapped pictures, and generally acted like tourists. At around 4:00pm we headed back to the apartment so I could grab my bag and head to the train station. I got there with about 40 minutes to spare, so I chilled in the departures lounge briefly before boarding the train.
On the train I actually talked to one of the other people in my compartment. He was a businessman from Singapore, so his English was quite good. We chatted a bit until the train got moving. He told me that the US was about to attack Iran and even offered a Chinese newspaper as proof. (It's a bit like offering the Weekly World News as proof of an alien civilization. I personally believe that somewhere out there there are aliens, but that doesn't mean I'll buy their cover story... but I digress) We headed to the dining car for a bit of dinner. The guy was pretty cool (he treated). He's managing the finances for some schools in Beijing but he's gone to Shanghai to ring in the New Year. He spent a year living in Boston back in the late 80's. Uhhh... That's about all I remember. After dinner we headed back to the compartment and crashed out for the duration of the trip (I made sure not to drink tea this time).
Sometime around the ass-crack of dawn the train rolled into frozen Beijing. I jumped on the subway and headed home with the morning commuters and could have sworn that the names of two of the stations had changed. A little while after I go home I called my employment agency to find out when I was supposed to teach that afternoon. Apparently it was a holiday (dammit!), so I could have been in Shanghai for one more day. I crashed out and slept until the afternoon.
Reflections
- People in Wuxi/Shanghai sound strange when they speak Mandarin. Surprisingly, I could still understand about as well as I understand people in Beijing (which is to say not that much, but enough to get by). When they don't speak Mandarin, it just sounds like Chinese used to sound to me.
- Shanghai is nice. Like, really nice. It was almost certainly the rainy weather, but Shanghai even seemed cleaner than Beijing. I really want to go back for several days so I can get a proper impression of the city.
- Slozo's a cool guy and I'm totally grateful for his hospitality. I hope to repay him in kind before leaving China.
- Traveling by train in China is really nice if you spend the big bucks. Even if you don't spend the big bucks it's quite tolerable.
I almost forgot! While in Wuxi, I had a short pow-wow with Yijie and came up with some HuSi related transliterations:
Hulver - He2Fo2 (huh-fwah) - He is a family name and an interrogative particle. Fo is Buddha.
HuSi - Hu1Xi1 (who-she) - It means "to breathe"
Here's what it looks like in characters:
Slozo's Technicolor Coat
As promised a couple weeks ago, here's a higher res picture of the sweet coat that Slozo's friend gave to him.
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